


Feedback

by Ruta



Series: Causa sui [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Implied Relationships, Post-The Final Problem, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-23 00:10:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9630905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruta/pseuds/Ruta
Summary: "She is a prisoner. I do not need her consent."Mycroft had appeared confused but Molly had been categorical.In the end there was no surprise that Eurus Holmes behaved like a monster.How can a monster believes to be something different if the world continues to convince him of his monstrosity? If they call you monster, no matter whether you are or not, in the end is exactly what you become: a monster.





	

In a place where time flows differently from the rest of the world, in a dimension alien to the basic moral norms, legal and social issues that govern the life of the _goldfishes_ , where the only law is that of the strongest, Molly Hooper tastes the sophisticated complexity and the multiple fickleness of the minds of two Holmes; starts to see the emotion that made them so blind to the greatness of what surrounds them, too predisposed to only capture the fragility and weaknesses of it. Blinded by their own brilliance.

After all, the first enemy of every man resides in the limits that he imposes to his own mind.

*

(She.)

 

She is not as she had imagined her. Not that she had high expectations, just that - just that, _what_?

She had not expected _this_. This: a prison made of concrete and bullet-proof glass, security doors and surveillance cameras. And inside the cage _her_. A woman who looks just like Sherlock, enough to turn her heart in a dhol. An angry woman, with unique features and a profile of fierce beauty that expresses very clearly two opposing feelings, vulnerability and aggression, and the no man's land in the middle of those two rivers flowing in a perpetual motion, inexhaustible sources of miracle or alternatively of devastation.

Under the intrusive gaze of Eurus Holmes, Molly straightens her back and let her decompose and then remount her appearance, cataloging any information obtained in classified compartments.

"Why did you come?"

"For the same reason for which you have agreed to meet me." She gives her an adamant smile. She shrugs. "Curiosity."

("She is a prisoner. I do not need her consent."

Mycroft had appeared confused and Molly had not been able to determine if it was due to the essence of her request or rather for the unusual daring prerogative that had characterized it. Not that it really mattered.

Molly had been categorical.

In the end there was no surprise that Eurus Holmes behaved like a monster. How can a monster believes to be something different if the world continues to convince him of his monstrosity? If they call you monster, no matter whether you are or not, in the end is exactly what you become: a monster.)

*

"Will you come back?"

"I guess I will."

"Why?"

"Because you and I are similar in a sort way. For years the morgue has been my fortress of solitude, just as yours is this place and that of Sherlock is his Mind Palace. I was alone and when I met him I stupidly thought that we would have healed each other."

"Loneliness is not a disease from which one must be healed."

"No, sometimes it's a relief because it represents independence and strength, but other times it shows its more unpleasant side. You're alone and that awareness becomes your cross and slowly can lead you to destruction. I will return, but on one condition. Sherlock will not know, will have to be kept in the dark."

*

"You have never been a creature made for solitude, Dr. Hooper and I don’t think you are anymore."

It is the questioning tone, the note of genteel upbringing to take her by surprise.

"No," she finds herself agreeing, as if thinking aloud.

Molly lets her eyes wander over the shoulders of Mycroft Holmes, into the patch of blue sky of the outside world that the large window would presage: the precipice of a steep cliff, angry splash of a stormy sea. Really, it's no wonder that Eurus Holmes pictures the world as the lions' den. The only glimpse that she has had of it since childhood (still a child although childhood was already a fading memory of something lost) were walls built by fear and mistrust, high and mighty and endless as the Great Wall of China; was the reverberation of that fury and power to sneak into the silences of her consciousness always into fibrillation, too focused on herself to open to the truths waiting beyond the misunderstandings. A world so different from her own, shy and reserved, distilled in localized images: the stillness of the morgue at Barts, the agreement reached with maturity and experience that justice can sometimes be harsh and cruel, but remains necessary, the belief that there would be no happiness without despair, and that nothing can exist without its counterpart.

Molly can accept the fact that she has been alone for a long time in her life, after the death of her father, and at the same time look at the past without compassion, but with indulgence. Otherwise she would not have been able to recognize the value of what she owns.

"I guess not anymore since I met Sherlock."

"For better or for worse."

"For better or for worse," she repeats and the smile that they exchange - just the discreet lift of a corner of the mouth; the comprehensive, accomplice tinge that softens the wrinkles of concern at the edges of the eyes of both - is the beginning of something that, if they were other people, she would not hesitate to call friendship.

*

_"He has torn apart a coffin that was meant for you. What makes us guess about him? He was not playing the game."_

_"_ _I_ _know."_

_"Then_ why _?"_

_It is a 'why' that encompasses more than one query and Molly disentangles them one at a time, like threads of a tangled skein. In the end there can only be one answer, the same as always._

_"B_ _ecause_ _he -"_

* * *

(He.)  

 

The first time the sensation catches him, Sherlock casts it away as he once did with Anderson’s stupid chatter.

He kills the blur and continues to play, deliberately ignoring the bracelet of beads on the thin wrist of his sister - flamboyant like a blood stain that starts to widen in the candor of a starched shirt.

He ignores it and yet, in the music, resounds a kind echo in response to that feeling, to the precise image - the name - it has evoked.

It's the first time that Eurus anger melts into something less pointed, less aggressive. It's the first time he feels hope.

*

The second time the deja vu manifests itself in a similar manner.

The brush with which Eurus is combing her hair has something familiar. (A piece stolen from a set of three different sizes, same design in filigree which winds around the silver oval and along the edges of the short handle.)

Again, in the beginning of the piece he performs, echoes the usual kind and sad note.

When Eurus laid the brush on the bed quilt, her hair is not a disheveled and swollen halo which remembers the coal dust, but a smooth and shiny waterfall as black onyx.

When she holds the violin and rests it under her chin, she pulls the hair back with a resolute gesture of the head that is inexplicably well-known to him (the golden crown that surrounds a head bent over a dead body, shaded by the dirty lighting of the old electric of the hospital facility).

This time, an ancient promise dismisses the inappropriate thought.

At the next visit, Sherlock decides, he will take her a hair tie.

*

The third time is a remnant of perfume in the room to alert him, a spring mirage in a winter in its twilight.

The sardonic smile that boasts the lips of his sister makes his hands unusually clumsy when he grasps the bow.

 _I know a secret_ , that slight and mocking smile seems to say.

The violin produces strident and discordant sounds.

The visit is unusually short. The tremor in his hands, however, outlasts a little more.

*

The fourth time, Eurus hair is tied in a herringbone braid.

When he enters, she addresses him with the same prickly smile before undo it with deft and fast fingers. Now, next to the bracelet of beads, there is a hair tie of a bright yellow.

Suspect under the skin is itchy as a case of nettle-rash.

Sherlock decides to ignore it for the moment.

*

There is a fifth and a sixth and a seventh time. Sherlock loses count of the clues. He has already determined her guilt, he has evidence, but that smile hold him every time from commenting, transforming doubts into questions.

The impasse is unbearable and yet.

The beneficial effects of that secret, the change in Eurus is undeniable to the point of being loud. (The unusual peace that alleviates the madness that once magnified Eurus eyes, as if she meant to restrain the world inside of them and burn it.)

*

_"I don’t know what you're talking about."_

_He refuses to look at her and Eurus banged her fist against the glass._

_"Don’t pretend with me," she hisses._

_Sherlock knows who has been there, he_ must _know. She knows he knows._ She _is kind, so annoyingly, wonderfully kind. It is natural on her part to wish to hide her visits. Naive (more than naive: counterproductive. Not even she can be so blatantly stupid to believe that Sherlock has not found out, that he is ignorant of what is happening), but understandable. She does not want to tie him to her. She does not want to force him to accept what he has already accepted. The generosity is what makes Molly Hooper special, her innate ability to give everything she has, everything she is. Sherlock behavior, however, may be less obvious. What's the point of hiding it, now? He has already lost. She could be his if only he wanted to. He wants it. She wants it. Then_ why _?_

_"She lied to you. She put you in front of a choice entirely hers, coming here. Nevertheless you are not angry. Why?"_

_The look in Sherlock eyes, that remote and ineffable expression she has already seen on a different face. "Because she -"_

_*_

_"Because he -"_

_"Because she -"_

_"- is the love of my life."_

* * *

"You cut your hair."

"They had become a hindrance."

"I don’t like them."

"Sherlock said the same."

"I'm not surprised. I imagine that during sex they were a stimulus of pleasure for him, especially when rubbed against one of the twelve erogenous zones."

"He’ll get over it."

Change is like a gun with which you are unfamiliar. You must learn to handle it before deciding whether it is appropriate to use it or seek a new one.

The gold ring that she wears on the left hand is a change with a defiant flavor. _Feedback_.

*

"Double visit? It must be Christmas."

"Don’t fall into her trap, Molly. She knows perfectly well that it _is_ Christmas."

"Oh."

_I am me. What else do you expect from the big bad wolf if not coaxing wheedle and sharp teeth?_

"Congratulations are in order. That's not why you're here? To announce the good news?"

Obviously she was already aware of it. She deduced it at her third last visit.

"I want you to choose the child's name."

‘I’, not ‘we’. Eurus directs a penetrating look at Sherlock, observing with delight his stiffened jaw, the nerve throbbing on his temple, his hand possessively surrounds the tiny shoulder of Molly Hooper-Holmes.

" _Middle_ name," Sherlock speaks dryly. "It will be the _middle_ name."

Molly Hooper smile pulverizes the temptation to point out to Sherlock the importance of _middle_ names. What he chose to use is not his middle name, after all?

"Merry Christmas," she says, a hand-woven with that of Sherlock - still on her shoulder - and the other unknowingly caressing the little more pronounced curve of the stomach.

Eurus is almost tempted to return the greeting.


End file.
